Edgar Allan Poe And The Masque Of Red Death

When one thinks of the word grotesque, they may begin to think of something disgusting or horrific such as Frankenstein. The literary meaning for grotesque could in fact be “ambivalently abnormal”(jahsonic.com). This is the coexisting of two separate modes, such as comedy and tragedy. The result is a disturbing fiction wherein comic circumstances prelude horrific tragedy and vice versa (georgiasouthern.edu). Edgar Allan Poe may in fact be the father of grotesque literature. Poe not only brings a sense of horror to his poetry, but is able to bring some sort of twisted comedy in as well. In Poe’s The Masque of Red Death, he describes the fact that humans are powerless when it comes to evading death. This life and death allegory is a good example